Need to start somewhere.

[2wheelsnot4]

Dear All

 

My wife and love of nearly 20 years has checked out and lost her connection with me. So many mistakes, but so much love and tenderness, even still between us. Just says she doesn't love me as a wife should a husband.

 

I have a huge back story and we started couples therapy last night which this morning feels like truck has run over my heart. I will post the story but unfortunately work calls, when all I want to do is hide under the duvet and cry for hours.

 

I've lurked here for a very long time trying to be brave enough to post but just needed to take the plunge this morning. I'm ready to spill what's inside and hope you can listen and offer some advice...it's complicated and struggling with lots of self hate.

 

I'll continue this soon. All the best for now.

 

2wheelsnot4

[strive]

Don't keep it all inside and let it all out. One source of comfort for me is "the kindness of strangers." I'm sure a lot of people here will give you great advice or even just a willing ear to listen to your story.

[hexadous]

Yeah agree with strive there's a lot of member here who I believe had same issue with you, don't keep it inside caused it may hurt you badly. I am a new member here, what I can tell you is I learn a lot from the post here, I feel quit relief to read, analyze, and understand the post meaning.

Edited November 12, 2013 by hexadous

[daz1976]

OK here goes. I'll keep it as tight as possible.

 

We met when she was 15 and me 18 and were about as in love as anyone could be. Moved in to my parents, finally got our own place. Through the years I worked on and off, never taking the responsibility I should have, she worked solidly like a trooper. As time went on I showed far too much interest in other women and finally gave in and cheated. No excuses, not full on sex but enough to be cheating. Told her that same night, she moved out, came back. Through the years I've always been prone to female attention and getting sucked in but never after this did I have any contact part from the odd flirting too much, wrote a letter to a singer once (total fantasy land).

 

We had a few threesomes mmf that at the time she said she enjoyed, we were young, I was stupid and her probably in love with me to do anything to make me happy.

 

Some 8 years ago my OH's father took his own life with depression and the devastation was massive, we lived on through the pain.

 

Then a few years after when I had been working a few years solid I suffered a massive breakdown and was diagnosed general anxiety disorder. I got help, moved on, but found it hard to be brave enough to get back to work properly, until one day she said she'd had enough and left. I got temp work washed up, cleaned toilets, anything and got stuck in. She came back. Then suddenly my father got brain cancer...6 weeks...healthy to gone. Carried on, got a property management job that I've been in for over 3 years. At some point along this, a cleaner who worked for me and had been abused bby her husband kissed me, and I did nothing apart from pull back and tell her it was not right. My wife dragged this out of me and I told her I'd gotten too close by caring for this girl but nothing more.

 

This year, we were planning children, I'd joined a gym, started long term therapy to help my anxiety (livable but difficult) and confidence and thought we were going great guns, then out of the blue she said she wasn't happy and made much of it sound like it was me being needy and controlling. I was to some degree hence the therapy. Ended up me getting my own flat for 4 months, growing as a person more than I ever had, and we dated,, both in therapy separately, and she seemed to fall in love with me again and asked me home. I was over the moon.

 

Then a month or so in I hit a depression maybe from the emotional impact of the split and realised this, carried on therapy and moved through it, realised my mistakes, and really started to pick up again where i had left off. I booked for us to go to dinner, I bought tickets for a play, but she then suddenly was distant.

 

Must point out at this point that OH is an outgoing social person, me not so much. I do go out with friends, but don''t feed off the energy in the same way she does. Some weeks she's so busy I see her 1 or 2 evenings at most but most of the time that's cool with me, I have my stuff, gym etc.

 

So when we got back together we promise, no lies, total truth with how we're going and feeling, and admit it's gonna be tough but we're in it for the long haul.

 

3 months in can see she's not happy so ask her, she admits she is. I ask anything particular, anyone else (she'd been much more verbal about men on TV etc). She says def not but has been talking alot about a gay guy she met at work, or she thinks he's gay.

 

Things get worse. She says she lost connection with me through few minor mistakes on my part, me just being a but mean at times,nothing major. Her xmas party is mentioned, she's staying over at hotel. I'm majorly concerned so my therapist says to just explain to her my worries.

I do and she says' again, no nothing to worry about, same feeling about me she's always had.

 

Two days later,, still feeling somethings missing, so ask again. This time she says, yes she's seeing guys differently, more like potential partners. Ok, it hurts but I live with it and understand we need to work on our connection.She says soemthing's broken inside her. I'm devastated as have worked my butt off over the months we were apart and since we got back together and feel she's done nothing but pursue her own needs.

 

Sunday still somethings missing. I sit her down and tell her, one last chance, honesty. She says ok, she's been having feelings for this gay guy. Two days after that, she says she thinks he's not gay and ssaid she told me, she did not. I ask, has she been pursuing it, she says no and he doesn't know or like her as far as she can see. I do some digging and she's been looking on titter to see if he was gay,, following him on titter, facebook friends. Who he is is irrelevant I know and I am pretty confident nothing more has happened than an infactuation.

 

Finally I (or her sister) gets her to therapy with me, yesterday where the therapist was great and saw she wasn't being honest with her feelings and was making many excuse from our past (too much to go into in this one post but willing too if you ask).

 

Where I'm at right now. I'm broken but have tried to gain some strength. I know I've screwed up in the past but so much love has passed between us since and I've moved the earth to make her happy and change and I have changed a great deal, I'm happy with me for the first time in my life but now it seems she's changed, checked out. I don't want her anymore like this, she buries her head in the sand, keeps busy, then blames me for our lack of connection. When I suggested therapy she said she would ave done it if I'd mentioned it earlier like it was only my job to mention it.

 

I'm so lost here. I have hope and no hope. She shows she loves me with her emotions and outbursts but it seems so locked away but she never seems willing to work to make the connection with me. She says she fancies me still, sex is great, we are best freinds. What do I do? I'm in so much pain and am fighting my dignity and my love for a woman who I dont recognize anymore.

 

Sorry for the waffle. Tired and just screwed up as she came over to drop something off and I told her I was only going to theraoy to split properly. She stormed out. Hating myself for that.

 

Please fire away.

 

2wheels

[alonefornow]

You said fire away, so I will. But first let me say that it is great you are in therapy and that you're working so hard to better yourself. Regardless of what the future brings for you and your marriage, please continue this!

 

So the first half of your post is about the first 20 years of your relationship, minus the past three months where you a) were unfaithful twice, b) had intermittent work at best, c) had multiple breakdowns, d) were needy and controlling.

 

The second half of your post is about the last three months where you admit to being depressed and then spend a lot of time detailing some trickle truth from your wife. This culminates in the line about the therapist, which honestly sounds like you're having a "see gotcha!" moment. You also seem willing to share what she talked about in therapy, which I really hope you do not do.

 

Now I know that there's way more to your relationship than what you've written, but reread what you've posted here and really think about what it says. To me it reads like, "I haven't had my s*** together for the first 238 months of my relationship, but now I do and my wife isn't being super great right now".

 

Sorry if this is harsh. You're hurting and I don't want to exacerbate that. But part of the point of these forums is to gain outside perspective and I'm trying to offer that. To me this one sentence says a lot,

 

I'm happy with me for the first time in my life

 

20 years is a loooong time to be with someone who isn't happy with themselves.

[daz1976]

I appreciate your response but find it difficult to understand some of the conclusions you've made from what I wrote. Admittedly I struggled to convey all that's happened but where you've gotten some of your assertions from leave me baffled.

 

I have not one issue accepting my part in this but do take issue with statements such as multiple breakdowns...I had one and have been constantly working on myself for the last 7 or 8 years. I had one affair not two. I've been in therapy all this year we'll before the moment said she wanted out.

 

I haven't time to respond fully but my one statement you mention about being happy with myself is not an indication of anything more than I realise my own part in this. My OH has been no Angel and I'm reluctant to talk of her side to the relationship because I love her. While I'm asking fir perspectives and guidance, I'd like it based on the facts not assumed ones. Im New to this and scared enough but I'm not about to accept comments that are simply untrue.

 

I'll respond more Cleary when I can.

[tojaz]

Daz/2wheels, I understand you not wanting to share your wife's side of things, but that is a big piece of the puzzle, when looking for guidance.

 

When i read through your story, I found myself several times wondering and trying to gauge your OH's true response. Your post seems to be written with the assumption that she has experienced things the same way as you have and that is very rarely the case. Things that have been resolved in your mind, may be very much alive in hers.

 

There is a lot of bad history there, and even if you had worked through those times in the moment, they all leave their mark. Moving the earth is great in the short term, but patience and understanding are what is going to help you now. It sounds like she has given you a lot of that over the years.

 

TOJAZ

[daz1976]

Tojaz. Thanks for the response. You're are spot on and there is so much you've said that I've worked through in my own therapy on my OH's perspectives and effects etc. I still have much to learn, I know, but so much I haven't said yet about what I've learnt. I tend to be like a horse at the starting gate, running a hundred miles an hour trying to explain and poorly so far.

 

It's so very difficult to write 20 years of ups and downs and the effects, my perspectives etc concisely without bouncing off others questions and your response is exactly what I hoped as a starting point.

 

Typing on my phone right now and on break at work but will get back to this more fully.

 

 

Thanks again.

[alonefornow]

My apologies for the multiple breakdowns, I had misread your post. But the twice unfaithful comes from these two statements:

 

As time went on I showed far too much interest in other women and finally gave in and cheated. No excuses, not full on sex but enough to be cheating.

 

and

 

At some point along this, a cleaner who worked for me and had been abused bby her husband kissed me, and I did nothing apart from pull back and tell her it was not right. My wife dragged this out of me and I told her I'd gotten too close by caring for this girl but nothing more.

 

are these the same incident?

 

Tojaz's post is more well said than mine and is spot on, what is your wife's interpretation of all of this history?

[2wheelsnot4]

Sorry always seem.to read these when I just have my mobile.

 

That's ok. I'll admit I'm touchy right now.

 

The cleaner thing wasnt that I liked her. I was her manager and really felt her pain and she burst into tears once and I gave her a hug...stupid I know...but no more than a hug to try and comfort her, it was then she kissed me, just peck on lips and I realised what had happened.and stepped back away from her. Nothing like me pursuing her etc. Admittedly I was daft in not showing her boundaries.

[2wheelsnot4]

On reflection. I don't think I'm ready to share all if this right now. Thanks though for your time and answers everybody.